Roman Catholics Defend this Use.
Dr. Wiseman, who stands high as a Roman Catholic authority, in his third letter, in reply to Poynder’s Pagano-Papismus defends the use of holy water:
“But did not the ancient Christians use holy water? Indeed they did, and that in a manner to shame us. They did not sprinkle themselves with it, to be sure, or help themselves from a vessel at the door, as you express it; they did more than either, they bathed in it. Read Pacciandi, De Sacris Christianorum Balneis, Rome, 1758, and you will find much to instruct you on this subject. You will see how the ancient Christians used to bathe themselves before going to church after the commission of any sin. ‘Why do you run to the bath after sin?’ asks St. John Chrysostom. ‘Is it not because you consider yourselves dirtier than any filth?’ And Theophylactus writes in a similar strain. An ancient Christian bath was discovered by Ciampini among the ruins of Rome. But what is more to our purpose, the ancient Christians never went to receive the Eucharist, or even to pray in their churches, without washing their hands. ‘What propriety is there,’ says Tertullian, ‘to go to prayer with washed hands and yet with an unclean spirit?’ St. Chrysostom is still stronger: ‘Thou darest not touch the sacred victim with unwashed hands, although pressed by extreme necessity; approach not, therefore, with an unwashed soul.’ To supply the necessary convenience for this rite, a fountain or basin was provided at the church porch at which the faithful washed, as St. Paulinus of Nola several times described in the churches which he built.... St. Leo the Great built one at the gate of St. Paul’s Church which was celebrated by Ennodius of Pavia in eight verses.... The same was the practice of the Greek Church; for Eusebius tells us with commendation how Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre, placed in the porch of a splendid church which he built, the symbols of sacred purification, that is, fountains which gave, by their abundant supply, means of washing themselves to those who entered the temple.[139]
“In fact, we have several of the old lustral vases with early Christian symbols and inscriptions, belonging to both the churches, as a celebrated Latin one at Pesaro, and a Greek one at Venice, drawings of both of which you will find in Pacciandi’s work with an ample description.”